At least I did ..
Anyway.. so.. she comes in fairly regularly and takes a good half hour to decide what she wants to buy and then only spends like a quarter or something.
One day she tells me that she's cheap.. that she doesn't like to spend money. Coming from a teen, I was impressed and told her that that was a good quality to have in life and would serve her well when she gets older.
Coming from someone who used to drop WHOLE PAYCHECKS on a pair of shoes, I think that I am qualified to tell her that!!
A few times after, she came in and told me that the reason why she doesn't like to spend money is because she is saving for a bicycle. She needs one and her mother won't buy it for her so she's saving her money to buy it herself.
THAT scored major points with me because Tim's youngest son has had four bikes stolen in three years because he's too lazy to bring them onto the front porch.. AND isn't responsible enough to NOT lose the key to the lock OR remember a combination to a lock.. so he just leaves his bike on the side of the house and it gets stolen.
Every.
Single.
Time.
So I'm not buying him anymore bikes. Refuse to. I think he only rode the last one like.. twice.. so that's why God gave you legs, Bucky..!
So.. off track.
Anyway.. I happen to mention the conversation with the girl to Tim and told him that I have a lot of respect for her. Yes, her spending a half hour in the store asking how much everything is every single time is a pain in the ass but you have to give credit where credit is due and considering his kids think their hearts desire should be presented to them on silver platters by toga wearing servants.. it's just refreshing.
So that's the back story.
Last week, we put a Toomey/Meehan sign in our window. I'm not going to go into that because everybody who knows us knows our political stance. In fact, when the Delco Patriots visited the store, they were reluctant to ask us to put a sign in our window because they didn't want our business to be hurt. I was like, ".. hell, we had a McCain/Palin sign in our window and we're still open."
This morning, Tim tells me this:
.. you know that girl you have a lot of respect for? Yea.. well.. she came in the store last night and I made her cry
My eyes got as big as Gaga's in the Bad Romance video and I was like, WTF??? Bad enough that we're justhisclose to closing the store anyway and you're making customer's CRY?
O.M.F.G!!
He tells me when she came in last night that she asked what the Toomey/Meehan sign was and he explained to her about the up coming elections and that the two running were Republicans. She made a face and said that Republicans don't help anyone. Tim told her that that wasn't true.. that he wasn't sure what she's grown up hearing but Republicans are charitable and isn't it better to donate because you WANT to as oppose to HAVING to?
I'm not sure exactly what words caused the transition but he wound up saying to her that she could be anything she wanted to be.. even President if she chose.
She shook her head no. ".. I could never be President."
Tim was like, "... of course you can! You can be anything you want to be.. the only thing stopping you is YOU! You're smart.. beautiful.. perfect just the way God made you."
And that's when she started to cry.
Other kids came into the store then so he shoved a handful of candy in a bag.. gave it to her.. and suggested that she might want to leave so she wouldn't be embarrassed.
Tim said to me this morning that that was probably the first time she had ever heard that in her life and it made me feel bad for her because you never know the life someone is living behind closed doors. I always say that kids are clean slates and only absorb what they're exposed to.
Maybe his words to her and her reaction to them brighten her spirit and erased some of the negative things she's heard in her life.
Maybe one day she WILL be a president.. of this country or of a corporation. Maybe she won't but maybe she'll be successful in whatever she chosed to do and maybe it will be because of what he said to her.
Most times, he can be a douche. I'm glad he wasn't yesterday and I hope that he got as much out of it as, hopefully, she did.
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